Pullman a national park? This could be big

Members of the Urban Land Institute tour the Clock Tower and Administration Building at the Pullman State Historic Site in Chicago on Nov. 5, 2013.

Members of the Urban Land Institute tour the Clock Tower and Administration Building at the Pullman State Historic Site in Chicago on Nov. 5, 2013. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

Pullman belongs in the National Park System

Dozens of attempts to revitalize Pullman, the far South Side neighborhood named for one of the nation's first factory towns, have struggled.

There are finally some signs of life there, and now one really promising opportunity. It — he — arrived in Chicago last week in full park ranger uniform explaining how the Pullman campus might fit into the National Park System. His name? Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park Service.

Jarvis met with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and visited Pullman to listen to residents and take a look around. Jarvis' tour de Pullman was important because he will greatly influence whether President Barack Obama uses his executive authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to declare Pullman part of the National Park System. If Obama agrees, Pullman finally would get the life preserver it has long sought. Pullman would become a national park and would receive funding and staff in the annual federal budget.

That's good news for Pullman supporters, who have tried for decades to bring status and resources to the old rail car community built in the 1880s. The site is already on state and national historic registries. But those designations don't come with a steady stream of revenue. The beautiful Hotel Florence and surrounding buildings in Pullman desperately need repair. The grounds are weed-strewn. Windows are boarded up.

Jarvis told us Pullman is an attractive property because it would fit into the existing park system's civil rights-themed locations — but also offer something unique. No park in the country captures the rise of organized labor and the black middle class quite like Pullman, where black rail car workers formed the first union to be included under the American Federation of Labor.

Pullman also was the site of great unrest. A worker strike over wages in the summer of 1894 between the rail union and Pullman Co. caused transportation gridlock across half of the country. Other unions boycotted the use of Pullman rail cars, triggering riots and eventually forcing federal government intervention. Thirty strikers were killed and 57 others wounded during the conflict.

If Pullman is added to the National Park Service, Jarvis said, tourists would immediately begin adding it to their trips. "They would want that stamp in their passport book," he said.

The Park Service would have to partner with state and local government to get the site ready. Jarvis said local investment is a Park Service prerequisite. Other sites similar to Pullman have leaned on corporate commitments to help with those costs.

Are you listening, Chicago CEOs? We hope so.

The federal cost would be $300,000 to $350,000 a year, Jarvis said. The agency's annual budget is about $2.8 billion.

Jarvis didn't give a specific timeline for the project. He reminded us: "It's not going to happen overnight."

That's OK, Mr. Jarvis. We don't need it to happen overnight. We just need it to happen.

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